Gap in the Door
by Writr626
Summary: A man wakes up in a dark, empty room, with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He must learn to survive against seemingly-impossible odds, as he discovers exactly what type of man he really is. Super-loosely based off of Silent Hill:PT, I wanted to put my own spin on the idea. I don't know much about the Silent Hill series other than PT, so sorry if something is off!


**Gap in the Door**

Eyes snapped open. A harsh breath filled his lungs with bitter, stale air. His blood was pumping, and he raised his fists in preparation to fight...

Nothing.

That was all he could see in front of him.

Nothing.

No light.

Just darkness.

He struggled to lift himself off the ground; his back screamed in pain. As his hands touched the floor, he flinched back: it was cold. Rough, too; it felt like concrete. Cold and dry and hard.

Wait. Who was he? What was his name? He struggled to recollect even that basic information, and his head hurt trying to figure it out. He had no memories, no recognition of where he was, and no name. Not a good situation to find oneself in.

But he _knew_ he did not know. He _knew_ that he had a name, that he should have memories. So that was something. He lifted himself up, straightened his back, facing the impenetrable darkness. So he must be a smart man, or at least somewhat clever. Good, good. That was a start.

He ran his hands along his legs. It was a rough cloth, designed to be durable from the feel of it. They were... jeans? As soon as he remembered that word, a flood of other vocabulary rushed into his mind. He had on shoes of some sort, boots, that were tough and durable, too. Rummaging through his jean pockets, he found a wallet, a set of keys, and what felt like a metal marble. Unfortunately there was no light, so he could not take a proper look through the wallet to find any sort of identification. There was quite a bit of money in the wallet, however, which told him a couple of things: first of all, that he was not broke; second, that he must have been traveling somewhere; last, that he never arrived at that destination to spend the money. As for the keys, they could belong to anything, and the metal marble...well, that was still a bit of an enigma.

As he felt along the edge of his belt (another word he remembered!), his fingertips grazed against something attached to his waist. It was in a small cloth cover; fumbling in the darkness, he separated the two pieces of velcro and took out something metal. He turned it over in his hands, feeling the oddly-shaped object along every edge. Suddenly the familiarity of the object snapped into his mind.

A gun.

A pistol.

Specifically, a standard-issue Glock pistol.

Why did he have that, though? Standard-issue for who?

He pondered his gap of knowledge as he carefully placed the pistol back in its holster, being sure to not touch the trigger and accidentally set it off. Even with his limited memory, he knew that shooting himself would cause more problems than solutions.

He ran his hands along his chest and face and found nothing of particular interest. He was wearing a plain shirt, he only had a slight beard growing, and there were no tangible scars or other discerning features. Just to check, he ran a hand down into his pants. Yep, he was a man.

He chuckled, and the sound of his voice shocked him. It was deep, but not booming; fitting for a man of his tall, thin stature. So he was not a particularly intimidating man, he thought to himself.

It was time to try and move. It had become clear to him that the chances of someone or something else showing up with a light was unlikely, so he would have to find one himself. He was disappointed that he did not have a flashlight or matches on his person; clearly he was not the type of person who over-planned for every situation. Then again...he wasn't entirely sure what sort of situation he was actually in. Nervously, he unholstered the pistol and held it out in front of him as he took a tenuous step forward.

The sound of his step on the concrete echoed around him. He must be in a small room, he surmised. That was good; it meant that if there was a light switch somewhere, it would be relatively easy to find. A small smile graced his lips. Perhaps soon he would be out of this mess, and would finally know who he was and what was going on.

The edge of the gun bumped against a wall, and he holstered it so that he could touch the wall with both hands. It was concrete, like the floor. Rough, cold, and hard. For a split second, he panicked: what if he had been sealed in an airtight room, left to suffocate to death?

There was no point in worrying, though: if he _had_ been locked in an airtight room, there was likely nothing he could do about it. But if he was not in an inescapable prison, it behooved him to try and find an exit, however possible.

Behoove. That was an odd word, he thought to himself. Clearly, whoever he was, he was not stupid to have that in his word bank. Good, another positive clue. He had not found out anything outrageously horrible about himself, so far.

Carefully, he took off a boot and set it next to the wall; this way he would know when he looped back around, in case he became confused in the darkness. Hopefully it would not be stolen or moved by another party, he thought to himself as he awkwardly began to hobble along the edge of the wall.

He hoped he might come across a light switch or some way out of this impenetrable darkness, but instead he only encountered a corner. Turning at a sharp ninety degrees, he began following it down same as before, cautiously putting his booted foot in front of the other in case he bumped into something, and keeping one hand against the wall so as to not lose his way. The distance from where he had first encountered the wall to the corner had been short: only a few meters or so.

As he reached another corner – this, too, at ninety degrees – he estimated that the wall was only three meters long. So wherever he had started must have been just off-center to the wall.

He bumped something in the dark with his hip, the air from his lungs escaping in one terrifying moment. He slapped a hand down to the surface of what felt like a table of sort. Wooden, too, by the feel of it, and old and worn. He groped around the edges, trying to get a sense of the size of it. The table was not incredibly large, only extending a meter into the next corner.

Placing his palm flat against the surface, he swept it along the top, hoping to encounter something useful. Sure enough, his hand brushed against something cold and metallic. He made to grip it and examine it better, but the edge was sharp and painful. He ran an index finger along the edge...there was a hilt! This was some sort of large knife. Different from a kitchen knife, however: the blade was much larger. A machete!

...Why on earth was there a machete on this table? Between the gun, the metal orb, and the machete, he wondered if perhaps he was not actually as good a person as he thought he was. What if he was actually a criminal? Or a murderer? He sucked in air. He did not think he could handle the realization of being a murderer. Nothing seemed more awful.

Despite these misgivings, he took the machete with him as he continued his trek along the wall; it was possible the large blade would come in handy for something, he thought to himself. He ran the flat edge against the wall, listening to the sound of the metal scraping on the concrete. The noise was chilling, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. For a split second he thought he could remember something – some memory lost to the void – but when he tried to hold on to that thought, it vanished. Like all his other memories, it was gone.

The clattering changed as metal suddenly stopped scraping against concrete, instead scraping against...wood? He stopped instantly, setting the machete carefully down on the ground and rubbing his hands along the surface. Vertical wood! That could only mean one thing, he thought, and as hope surged within him he brushed his hand against something cool and metal.

"Hah!" he shouted triumphantly, turning the handle and swinging the door open inward. A pale light issued outward, flooding his senses with visual response. He could see again! Turning around, he grabbed the boot he had set against the wall and put it back on, and took a glance at the space he had called home for the moments since his awakening.

It was a small, concrete room. Square, only a few meters long. The table was up front against the same wall as the door, and took up nearly a quarter of the entire space. Hard to imagine how vast it had felt now, given the minuteness of the actual area.

Picking up the machete from the ground and holding it out in front of him, he examined the space he now occupied. The small, narrow hallway was dimly lit, but still bright enough to allow him to examine it in detail. The walls were home to loud, colorful floral wallpaper, some of which had been drawn on with crayon by a child. To the right, an empty doorway opened up into another room; further down, the hallway curved to the right into a larger open space: a living room, of some sort.

The strangest thing was the window on the left. He walked over to it and stared out, but found that there was nothing. Not just darkness, but...nothing. As in, total emptiness. No streets, no yards, no _anything_. Just a void of shadow. He opened the window and stuck a hand out. It was very cold. Unnaturally so.

Closing the window with a shiver, he took a deep breath and tried to collect his thoughts. He was in a very strange place, that was for sure. He had been left in an empty, concrete room that opened up into what looked like a perfectly normal house. Only that outside there was literally nothing, so it clearly was not that normal. And he still didn't know who he was...

Wait! He pulled out the wallet from his pocket, nestling the machete in the crook of his left arm. Though it was dim, the light was just enough for him to see things properly. Inside, He found the large bundle of money he had felt earlier, a set of credit cards...and a driver's license.

At last! He read the name: Martin Crow.

Huh. Odd. As he had been trying to recall some scrap of memory, he had wondered what his actual name might be. He had considered Charles. John. Maybe even Richard. But Martin? That just sounded...strange. But familiar, also.

The photo definitely resembled what he thought of his face. It was thin, but not sallow; pale, but not sick. His eyes were hazel, emotionless. He looked like a soldier of some sort, but not too aggressive or angry to warrant fear. His hair was a brown nest; considering that he did not have a comb in any of his pockets, neatness was clearly not his priority.

"YOU!"

He turned. A woman stood at the end of the hallway. She wore jeans and a t-shirt, but the shirt was smeared with blood. A large gash ripped through her stomach; blood drizzled down her shirt on to her jeans and then further to the floor. Her hair was wild, a blond mane. She only got stranger from there; her fingers were curved and sharp like knives. Her face was sallow and shrunken, like a skull. But worst of all were her eyes.

Black.

Black, like the darkness he had woken up in.

Black, like the void outside.

Martin dropped his wallet and held out the machete. "Ma'am, I don't know who you are, but I am need of your assistance," he said as calmly as he could muster. "Can you tell me where I am currently?"

"You _murdered_ me," she hissed, stepping forward menacingly. "You _butchered_ our daughter. You monster."

"Uh, ma'am?" He took a step back, holding the machete defensively in front of him. "Ma'am, I really don't know what you're talking about. You certainly seem alive to me, I think..."

The woman rushed forward, screaming. He slashed with the machete but was too early: it sliced through only air. In a single instance she was on him; he felt an explosion of pain as her clawed hands stabbed into his chest cavity...

And then everything went dark.


End file.
